8.TT.1.1

This is an 8th grade exit project being done on the 1990s. This project is about many advances in space, trials, and terrorist attacks. Many great and terrible things happened during this eventful decade. Read more to find out about some important events during the 1990s. In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched into space by NASA. Since then, the telescope has published more than 6,000 scientific articles. It has also made some great discoveries, like how the universe is about 13 to 14 billion years old and how it discovered dark energy. Some other interesting facts about the telescope is that it travels around the earth every 97 minutes. That means it moves 5 miles per second! The telescope was named after astronomer Edwin Hubble. Its original launch was set to be on October 1986 but was cancelled after the loss of the space shuttle “Challenger”. When the telescope was first launched, it was giving back flawed images due to an optical problem, but after five days of spacewalks, astronauts from the space shuttle “Endeavour” repaired it. After the repair, it started giving back crystal clear images. The telescope has discovered ancient galaxies and was launched on April 24, 1990 from the space shuttle “Discovery”. Its cost at launch was 1.5 billion dollars. Some other information about the telescope is that its length is 43.5 feet and its diameter is 14 feet and it weighs 24,500 pounds. In 1991, Operation “Desert Storm” occurred. Desert Storm started on January 17, 1991 and lasted 38 days. George H.W. Bush Senior was the president at the time. During the battle, the average age of a soldier was 26.4 years old. There were lots of losses in equipment and casualties of soldiers. TheU.S. lost 23 helicopters but only 5 of the losses occurred in combat situations and 18 occurred in non-combat situations. MoreU.S. helicopters were lost in non-combat than in combat. Of the 22 F-117A stealth fighters only 18 saw combat. NoU.S. losses occurred in air to air fights. For theU.S. troops, there were 147 battle deaths, 145 non-battle deaths, and 1 missing in action. For the army 98 of the deaths were in battle and 105 were not in battle. For the Navy, 5 were lost in battle and 8 were lost in non-battle situations. They also had one soldier go missing in action. For the Marines, 24 soldiers were lost in battle and 26 were lost in non-battle. And for the Air Force, 20 were lost in battle and in non-battle situations, they lost 6. The money used for Desert Storm was around 31.6 billion dollars for combat alone. The whole operation cost about 100 million dollars. Desert Storm was called “The Mother of All Battles” by Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein. In 1992, Rodney King was caught driving under the influence and did not want to get pulled over so he started a high speed chase. When the police finally stopped him, they hit him with a baton 56 times and kicked him 5 times. The beating left him with 11 skull fractures, kidney damage, and brain damage. People began thinking that racial profiling was going on with police so a trial took place to try to get the police officers that beat Rodney King arrested. The jury, who was entirely white, said the police officers were not guilty of racial profiling. That made people very mad and a riot began. The riots started on April 29, 1992 and lasted a few days. The riots started when 5 African American teens went into a liquor store and broke the windows with bottles of liquor and one screamed “the is for Rodney king!” After that, more African American youth started beating up white car drivers and one driver was hurt when a piece of concrete was thrown through his front windshield. The worst incident was when a white truck driver named Reginald Denny was pulled out of his truck and beaten with a claw hammer, then Damian Williams smashed a piece of concrete onto his head. His skull was fractured in 91 places. Rodney King tried to talk to rioters saying “cant we all just get along?” All together, the riots left 53 people dead and caused 1 billion dollars in property damage. In 1993, the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) and the FBI raided a cult headquarters for the cult “Branch Dividians”. The siege happened in theMount Carmel building. The cult was abusing children and storing weapons. The leader of the cults name was David Koresh. The ATF got a search warrant but the cult wouldn’t let them search the building. On February 28, 1993 a negotiation that lasted 51 days started. During the negotiation, a number of children and a few adults were set free. On April 19, 1993 the ATF and FBI tried to use tear gas to push the cult out of the building but they stayed there. A gun fight broke out killing four agents and six members of the cult. A fire also broke out killing 75 people and all 21 children in the building. David Koresh died from a gunshot wound to the head. The FBI denies starting the fire. In 1994, O.J. Simpson was said to be in Chicago on a business trip when he was told that his wife was killed. When he came back to his house, he was accused of murdering her, but when he was about to be arrested he escaped. Then he was arrested in the Palms casino and taken for questioning then stayed the night in a cell. O.J. was accused of murdering his wife and her friend Ronald Goldman. O.J. was checked into Clark County Detention center and charged with two counts each of robbery with a deadly weapon and assault with a deadly weapon. There were three other people involved, their names were Clarence Stewart, Michael McClinton, and Tom Scotto but there were no charges pressed against the three. The trial started with Lance Ito assigned as judge for the trial. During the trial, O.J. wrote a book called “I Want To Tell You”. On the crime scene, there was lots of evidence that was found that was traced back to O.J., like DNA samples matching O.J., bloody shoeprints from a size 12 shoe which is the same size that O.J. wears, and a bloody glove with an identical glove found on O.J.’s property. In court, O.J. tried on the bloody glove but it seemed to not fit. Even with all that evidence against O.J. he was still said to be not guilty. In 1995, on March 20, members of a religious cult named Aum Shinrikyo performed an attack in the Tokyo subways by taking bags filled with the liquid form of the deadly gas sarin and wrapping them in news paper then putting them on the ground and puncturing them with sharpened umbrella tips. The gas seeped onto the floor and began to evaporate into the air and passengers started to complain of having a runny nose and watery eyes. Some began to start coughing and breathing heavily and some even became paralyzed and died. Sarin gas is estimated to be 500 times more potent than cyanide and a single drop the size of a pinhead can kill an adult. In the subway, the gas effects spread very quickly because the gas can stay on your clothes for up to 30 minutes. The injuries that occurred from the attack range from 3,800 people to 6,000 people. 12 people were killed from the attack. Only 9 months before the subway attack, the same cult released a cloud of sarin gas in a neighborhood and killed 7 people. One victim who stayed on the subway for 45 minutes after it was released says that he still suffers from shuddered headaches and weight loss 15 years after the attack. One victim died after being in a coma for 14 years. In 1996, a man named Theodore Kaczynski was arrested for being thought to be the “Unabomber”. The man was very smart as he graduated from Harvard and was a math professor at the University of California at Berkley. After he retired, he lived as a hermit in a 12 by 16 foot cabin. Over an 18 year period, the man sent 16 bombs by mail to mostly universities and airlines. All of the bombs exploded while they were opened. Over the course of all the bombings, he killed 5 people and hurt 23. The FBI started investigations to find him back in 1979. He was finally caught when he sent a 35,000 word manifesto to the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers and they published it. His brother recognized that it was him and turned him in to the FBI. After the bomber was arrested, the FBI was searching his cabin when a bomb exploded. No one was injured. In 1997, Comet Hale-Bopp was discovered by two amateur astronomer named Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp. The two astronomers saw it at almost exactly the same time even thought Alan Hale was in New Mexico and Thomas Bopp was in Arizona when they saw the comet. It was discovered on July 23 1995 and was named “The Great Comet Of 1997”. The comet began to be visible in 1996 and it was the most widely observed comet in history. When it was first discovered, it was 665 million miles away and as it got closer to earth it got brighter and that’s when you could see it with your naked eye. When it was first discovered it was only a year and a half away from its closest approach to earth. Its closest approach to earth was at 122 million miles away on March 22, 1997. The comets nucleus was estimated to be about 30 to 40 km across. One person put on his blog that there was a UFO following the comet. In 1998, the movie “Titanic” was named most nominated movie of all time and was nominated for 14 Oscars and brought home 11. No other film has won as many awards. The movie cost 200 million dollars to make and grossed 2 billion dollars in box office sales. The movie won best picture, best director, best film editing, best sound effects, and best visual effect along with some other awards. Some of the actors and actresses in the movie are Leonardo Dicaprio who played Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet who played Rose Dewitt Bukater, Billy Zane who played Cal Hockley, Bernard Hall who plays Captain Edward John Smith, and Kathy Bates who plays Molly Brown. Both Captain Edward John Smith and Molly Brown were real people on the titanic. In 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planted propane bombs in the cafeteria inColumbineHigh School. The plan was for the bombs to go off and kill people and when the survivors ran out of the cafeteria they would shoot them. The bombs never went off so they started walking around shooting people. The two shooters wanted to kill everyone in the school but they only killed 13 people. The shooting took place on April 20 which is also Hitler’s Birthday. The shooters studied Hitler and adored him. They also set up car bombs in their cars in the parking lot but when the bombs went off, they didn’t injure anyone. The shooters also threw many pipe bombs in the school. When the terrible shooting was over, the shooters shot themselves. The Columbine shooting was the most famous shooting ever. That was the research paper on some of the great discoveries and terrible events that happened during the 1990s. What an eventful decade!